


Twin Suns

by SassySnowperson



Series: Mara Jade Stories [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Non-Traditional Gestures of Commitment, POV Mara Jade, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassySnowperson/pseuds/SassySnowperson
Summary: Seeing someone, you said. Unusually fond of this guy, you said. Might actually be a good one, you said. 

You know what you didn't say??? 

THAT HE WAS JEDI MASTER LUKE SKYWALKER. HE'S FAMOUS.~There are some consequences to taking a galaxy-renowned Jedi as a romantic partner.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Series: Mara Jade Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060385
Comments: 17
Kudos: 53





	Twin Suns

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last story (planned, at least for now) in the series, and so I feel the need to take a minute to thank [rosepetalfall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosepetalfall) once again. Without her enthusiasm, this wouldn't exist! I'm very grateful for her creative energy, her love of the series, and her ability to gently whap me with a rolled up newspaper and tell me to stop writing so many run on sentences.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon when Mara realized that she was going to love Luke Skywalker for the rest of her life. 

There wasn't even anything special going on right then. Luke was getting ready for a diplomatic appearance, and Mara was packing because she was going with him. Respectability was apparently contagious, and she had now spent enough time around Luke that people expected her to care about receptions with too many speakers and not enough food. 

Mara knew a secret though— _Luke_ didn't really care about all that either. But he was actually enough of an idealist to believe that communication and respect would make the galaxy a better place, and he extended that philosophy even to diplomatic receptions. It didn't really explain why Mara was going along, though. 

"Why am I doing this again?" she asked rhetorically, as she dragged a stunning black dress studded with pale green gems off of its rack in Luke's room and shoved it in her compacticase. 

She was rummaging around for the matching shoes when she heard Luke's answer. "Because you love me," he called from the other room. 

Mara stopped and stared into the depths of the closet as she realized, yes, that was why she was doing it, and that no, she probably wasn't going to _stop_ loving him anytime soon. Ever. She had been through too much, shared too much, built too much with Luke for the love to ever fade. He was going to be a part of her life for the rest of her life. 

She didn't know what to do with her revelation, but it wasn't the sort of thing that needed quick action. She grabbed her shoes and backed out of the closet, yelling an insult in Luke's direction about the low quality of the parties he kept taking her to. 

* * *

"Master Skywalker, Master Skywalker," the mass of holoreporters called from where they clustered on the steps outside the embassy that was hosting the reception.

Luke leaned over to whisper in her ear, "I probably should actually make a statement about the Naxi crisis." 

"Good luck," Mara turned to whisper back, feeling privately amused at Luke’s little wave of dismay as she turned away from him and the reporters and entered the building. She went to find some quiet corner to hide in until Luke escaped the media. 

The news bulletins that evening had a splash image of her and Luke with their heads bowed together, Mara smiling her private smile. She was a little annoyed that a reporter had managed to capture a piece of her that really wasn't meant for public consumption. But there was another part that was _smug_ and _pleased_ to have this proof that however else the world saw Luke, it also saw him by her side. 

Luke caught the flavor of her emotions and sent back a little _amusement._ "It is a good picture." 

Mara wrinkled her nose at him, and he laughed, and she still didn't know what to do with this comfortable feeling of love and connection that radiated through her. So she went back to chopping vegetables into a neat medium dice for the soup she was prepping, which was what she had been doing before she got distracted by this whole thing. 

* * *
    
    
    Mara what the fuck.
    
    Mara. 
    
    MARA.
    
    WHAT THE FUCK. 
    
    Seeing someone, you said. Unusually fond of this guy, you said. Might actually be a good one, you said.
    
    You know what you didn't say???
    
    THAT HE WAS JEDI MASTER LUKE SKYWALKER. HE'S FAMOUS.
    
    Wait.
    
    Are you famous??? WE HAVE BEEN FRIENDS FOR YEARS I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IF YOU WERE FAMOUS.
    
    The fuck. Call me.
    
    -Daso

Mara propped herself up on one elbow and grabbed her holocomm from the bedside table. She looked down at the scrolling text as alerts kept coming in and smiled. "Hey, I think I'm gonna head out for a couple weeks," she told Luke. 

"Mmm, business come up?" Luke rolled over and tucked his chin over her shoulder, the warmth of his body a reassuring curve around her. 

She held up the comm for him to read. After a moment scanning the words he gave a short laugh and buried his face in her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice still amused. "I should have known those reporters were trouble." 

"I kept following you to these things. I knew I was going to end up in the media sooner or later. It's why I always do the full dress-and-makeup getup. Long sleeves to cover the tattoos. Figure it makes the grey market half of my acquaintances less likely to recognize me." She reached up to scratch her fingers through his hair. "But there are some folks who know me well enough to spot me despite the feminine disguise. I should probably do a damage control tour." 

"Need anything from me?" Luke asked, not protesting that she was leaving, not trying to make her stay. 

"Just keep the place from exploding while I'm out," Mara said, and put her comm away, rolling over and pressing him back into the bed. "And maybe give me a nice send-off before I go." 

"Yes, ma'am," Luke said, and reached up to pull her down into a kiss. 

* * *

The door chimed softly when Mara walked through it, and the tattoo artist behind the desk gave a friendly smile. "Hi, welcome to—oh Mara! Daso's with a customer right now. It might be a couple hours." 

"That's fine," Mara said with a little handwave. "Can you set me up with a sketching console while I wait?" 

"Of course, come with me." 

A little over an hour later, Mara was whacked lightly on the back of her head with an open palm, and then pulled up out of her chair into a big hug. 

"I said _call me_ you idiot, not _come visit_. Not that I'm not happy to see you," Daso said, smiling so broadly it crinkled the corners of her Mirialan face tattoos. As Mara tried to wiggle her arms free enough to hug Daso back, Daso continued, "Alright, the pressing question. You and I have had our fun from time to time. Is an angry Jedi Master going to come stalking through the door of my tattoo shop and demanding…I don't know, vengeance?" 

Mara couldn't help her laugh. "Luke very much is not the vengeance sort. You're safe. He doesn't care who I've slept with." 

Daso released Mara from the hug and shook her head. "Well, okay. Always knew there was something special about you, Jade. Didn't realize it was, you know, bag the galaxy's most powerful hero sort of special, but I probably should have known."

"Clearly," Mara said, cocking her head. "I'm pretty awesome." 

Daso hadn't done all of Mara's tattoos, but she had done her first, and Mara would forever be grateful for her insight and nudging until Mara was in her chair. Her shop was up the street from the first really decent kitchen Mara had worked in. Mara still came back to that kitchen every so often, even now, to talk with old friends and meet with the head chef and help out for a few weeks during the mad rush that was tourist season. She'd swing by Daso's shop, too, and get new art laid down on her skin. It was a routine that kept her grounded, in the middle of her increasingly ridiculous life. 

Three years back, the old head chef had retired, and Mara was flummoxed to find out he had been replaced by Fillon, a Nautolan that she had known since they were both in their early twenties. He had been brash and impulsive and charming enough that people tended to forgive the first two, as well as wickedly fast with a knife. Fillon seemed pretty flummoxed himself, and they had shared a laugh over the fact that he had managed to grow up into someone responsible enough to be left unsupervised in charge of a kitchen. 

"You're still wandering around though, huh?" Fillon had asked, sounding a little sad at the prospect. 

"Galaxy's too big to stay in one place," Mara had replied. "But it's about the places you keep coming back to.” 

Then they had shared an affectionate smile and Fillon had given her the sauce station and said that if she scorched anything she was fired, friendship be damned. Mara had cursed him out and told him she hadn't scorched a sauce in thirteen fucking years, and that one time there was a _toousa bird loose in the kitchen there were extenuating circumstances._

Connections like this, Fillon, Daso, all the people that had let her in when she was nothing more than a drifter with a lousy past and commitment issues, were what Mara had built her life on. She knew better than to dismiss them just because she now sometimes got to (had to) attend diplomatic functions on the arm of the most powerful man in the galaxy. 

"So you kicking me out now that I'm famous?" she asked Daso. 

"Fuck no." 

"Putting my picture up in the window so everyone knows you did my ink?" Mara challenged. 

"You know how many famous assholes would come through here if I started advertising like that? I've only got room for one famous asshole in my life, and that's you. Come on, let’s see what we're working with today," Daso said, sitting down at the sketching console. 

Mara sat too, and pulled up her rough sketch and inspiration images, arranging them. "I'm not really that famous," she pointed out as she rotated the display to point towards Daso. "Just background to the actually famous guy." 

"I like how you're not protesting that you're not an asshole," Daso said, taking out her stylus and starting her own rapid sketch next to Mara's, her eyes darting between the idea Mara laid out and the reference photos. 

"Obviously I'm an asshole," Mara said, rolling her eyes. "I'd better be, I work hard at it." 

"Yeah, yeah, okay…" She went silent for a few minutes, sketching rapidly, before asking, "Here, what do we think?" Daso rotated the image back toward Mara, raising an eyebrow. 

Mara looked at the lines, hovering in the air. As always, Daso's image was cleaner than hers, but captured the essence of what Mara wanted—a foregrounded desert that faded to windworn mountains, twin suns shining above the ground. Daso had made color marks to catch the reds and yellows of the sunset and the desert behind the outline. 

"Yeah," Mara replied, feeling strangely emotional. "That's it."

"Where is this one going?" Daso asked, taking the display back. "I'll tweak it for body shape." 

Mara hesitated for a second, before laying her hand high on her ribs, right under her breast. "Here." 

Daso stopped and drummed her fingers on the table, tilting her head before carefully saying, "Not where you usually put ink." 

No, Mara's tattoos were public things, outward-facing reclamations of her skin and self. Some had deeper meaning, some she just thought looked beautiful. She was turning herself into art—she wanted people to actually admire it. High on her ribs was a private place, and Daso knew it. This wasn't for the world to see. 

Daso looked back down at the art. "I'd heard, somewhere, that Master Skywalker was from Tatooine." She gestured to the reference images. "Always thought it looked something like this. Am I right?" 

Mara gave a little smile. "Yes." She'd known Daso would understand. That was probably why she'd come here to get it done, in all honesty. She _could_ have just talked Daso down over a phone call. But she wanted to be here, she wanted this art, and she wanted it done by someone who understood the significance. 

"Your boy, does he understand what a good thing he's got?" Daso asked. It wasn't jealousy in her voice. She had told Mara a long time ago that she enjoyed sex but didn't do romance, and that had suited Mara perfectly. It was something closer to protectiveness. Mara felt a little lump in her throat at the idea that someone would look at her and Luke, and figure that _Luke_ was the lucky one in that equation. 

"Better than anyone," Mara was glad to answer truthfully. "He's loved me for ages—I'm the one that took a long time coming around." 

"Not surprised," Daso replied affectionately. "And is he going to understand this?" She gestured at the sketch. 

"That's why I'm doing it," Mara said. Neither of them were government-approved-paperwork sorts of people. But she was going to love Luke forever, and Luke had the right to know it. 

Daso reached forward and took Mara's hand and squeezed it. "Good," she said quietly. "Well come on then, let’s get you in the chair and get this done." 

* * *

Getting from the landing pad to Luke's room at the temple was sometimes like running a gauntlet. There were too many people around that knew her and were happy to see her. Which was something Mara generally enjoyed, but not right now, when she was tired and mostly just wanted to see Luke again. Still she managed to keep her irritation tucked inside until she waved goodbye to the last hanger-on and toggled the door open to their quarters. 

Luke was off teaching or something, so Mara had the place to herself for a while. She washed the recycled-air feel of the shuttle off and wandered over to the kitchen, debating what she could make. 

"Mara? I heard you were—oh, that smells _amazing_ ," Luke called enthusiastically when he entered the room a little while later. His face appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. "What are you making?"

"Chocolate boontaspice truffles," Mara informed him and enjoyed the way his eyes lit up in response. Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, lover of sweets and chocolate. 

Luke came over and kissed her, then kissed her again, and again, until she needed to break away, laughing, "The timing on this is tricky, if you distract me you'll just have Hardened Chocolate Blobs." 

"Delicious," Luke said, wrinkling his nose. But he did back off, then turned around to look at his counter with a faint sigh of dismay. "It's good to have you home," he said, sincerely but a little exasperated. 

Mara turned to examine the carnage of dishes she had left behind her. "Good to be home," she replied. "Otherwise I might have to wash these myself." 

Luke glared at her, but he rolled his sleeves up and started washing anyway. "How did your damage control tour go?" 

"Well. Karrde's people already knew most of it. Karrde and I had a talk on how to handle disclosure if it comes out I'm working for him, too." Mara paused to glance over at the chrono, checking the time. They needed a little bit longer. "It was the kitchen side that was more complicated. People needed reassuring that I wasn't going to drop them now that I was famous, or something like that." 

"I envy the friendships you've built, sometimes," Luke said, sounding wistful. "There's not too many people that knew me…before." 

"You could always burn your identity and run away from everything and hang out in kitchens for a couple decades. You'd get there eventually." 

Luke snorted. "I'll keep that in mind." He looked up at her and gave a smile. "I'm pretty happy with how my life is working out right now." 

"Sap," Mara declared, and found a spoon that had been hiding behind her on the counter. She slipped it into the pile of dirty dishes and grinned at Luke's irritated huff. 

"Mostly glad," Luke amended. "It does seem to be unusually full of dishes, for _some reason_." 

The truffles turned out perfectly, so at least Mara could offer him a good reward for all his toil. She batted away his hand when he reached for them, then picked one up and held it next to his lips. Luke smiled at her, that slightly-wicked smile only she got to see, and grabbed her wrist to take her fingers into his mouth, running his tongue along the tips of her fingers to lick them clean. 

"I've missed you," Mara said, shivering a little at the wet heat of his mouth and the promise of his smile. 

Luke grabbed a plate of the treats and gestured her over to the couch. He did have such _good_ ideas sometimes. Mara sat on his lap and fed him slowly, accompanied by lazy chocolate-flavored kisses. 

Mara relaxed into the feeling of Luke nearby, her defenses slowly unraveling until she was heavy-lidded with relaxed pleasure on top of him. "Bed?" she asked, after sucking a bruise into his neck, just for the joy of listening to him groan. 

"Yes," Luke said breathlessly. 

Luke was on his back, with Mara straddling him, when he finally got her shirt off. He stopped moving, almost immediately, and made a curious humming sound. He reached up, encouraging Mara to twist so he could see her new tattoo. 

Luke had run his fingers and lips over every tattoo she had, and asked her to tell him the stories of how and when and why she had gotten them. Gradually, she had shared the meaning of every one, from, 'This is the first thing I bought that wasn't meant for killing,' to 'Each of the flowers on that vine represents someone whose life I've saved,' to, 'I just thought it looked neat and I needed to fill in the space with something.' He'd absorbed the information seriously, and his attention just made Mara want to share more. 

She could feel the way he went still when he saw her new design. His hand came up, and she could feel the way it trembled, just a bit, when the pads of his fingertips lightly touched her skin. 

"Mara," he said in quiet wonder as his fingers traced the outline, before he reached forward and his palm covered the design entirely, his fingers curling around her torso. "I—" 

Words seemed to fail him. It was his Force-presence that surged up to meet her all full of _joy_ and darting thought impressions _I never expected you to I never asked are you sure I love you_ _I love you I love you._

"I love you too," Mara said out loud, and hoarded the smile Luke gave her in return. 

She shared so much of him with the galaxy, but this moment and this smile were hers and hers alone. She'd probably always need to wander, but she knew she'd always return to this. Luke was her home. 

Amazing, how she'd once thought she'd lose the core of who she was if she stayed with him. Instead, she found herself, over and over again, in his smile, in his kind heart, in his gentle touch, in his persistent love. 

Mara reached down and covered his hand with her own, their fingers tangling over the twin suns. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I was planning on ending the fic series with the last story, and then Rosie went, hey it'd be nice to have Mara getting a Luke Tattoo on paper, as sort of a bookend! And I went - yes that's a lovely thought but I'm ending the series with them getting together. 
> 
> well. 
> 
> She was right, and this also gave me a chance to circle back with some of the first people Mara met when she broke free, and see how they, and she, has grown. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed this series that I mostly wrote just because I wanted it to exit. I had no idea what the audience for it was, so if you've reached this point, know that I am very glad you exist, and thanks for coming along on this alternate telling of Mara's story with me! 
> 
> Want to talk more? Comments are always a good place to chat, and you can also find me [on Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sassysnowperson)
> 
> Also, over on tumblr I've made a [ splash graphic with links and a quick description of the series](https://sassysnowperson.tumblr.com/post/639244320953761792/as-a-part-of-my-surprise-self-inflicted-end-of-the) if you'd like to share it, or just look at the fancy header picture!


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